On Reading Platonic Dialogues

NOTES ON BOOKS

These very brief notes are intended to be of aid to readers largely unfamiliar with Plato and his dialogues, although readers more familiar might be reminded of things they’ve heard elsewhere.

1. Wisdom is anonymous. We are in possession of thirty-five dialogues that at one time or another were credited to Plato. While confidence in authorship of some has waxed and waned over the centuries, each judgment necessarily presupposes a competent understanding of the dialogue in question. If our goal is to learn from the dialogues and not merely about them, we may be hardly concerned about authorship at all.

2. Plato says nothing or he says everything. The Platonic dialogues are like plays – the characters in the dialogue, whether one or many, do all the speaking. In the cosmos of the dialogues, Plato is only mentioned twice and he never speaks a line. (He is said to be present at the Apology of Socrates and absent when Socrates drinks the hemlock in the Phaedo.) It is impossible to say, and foolish to assume, that any particular opinion expressed by a Platonic character is Plato’s opinion.

3. But Plato did choose the titles. Most of the dialogues bear the names of people. When we open the pages, we see they are in all but two cases people who participate in the dialogues. Then there are several dialogues that indicate something else: Republic, Laws, Statesman, Apology of Socrates, Sophist, Lovers, Symposium. The clearly political character of at least four titles stands out immediately. A little historical background and reflection would deepen that theme (Hipparchus, Minos, Laches, Critias). One might also suspect that the kinds of students and teachers is thematic (Parmenides, Protagoras, Hippias, Ion, Timaeus, Euthydemus, Gorgias, Euthyphro and Cratylus are all teachers of one sort or another, and most of the other proper names not already mentioned are students). The choices of Plato we can clearly observe draw our attention to politics and education.

4. The dialogues take a splendid variety of forms. Most dialogues are performed, displaying direct speech between characters as in a play. A handful are directly narrated by Socrates (Republic, Lovers, Lysis, Charmides). There are also mixtures of these styles (Theaetetus, Protagoras, Euthydemus). Since all but nine of the dialogues are performed, it is worth noticing and thinking about the literary advantages of each form, some of which are mentioned below.

5. Socrates is a question mark. There can be no doubt that Socrates is somehow the center of the Platonic cosmos. He is present in all but two dialogues (Laws, Epinomis); he is a primary interlocutor in all but three of the remainder (Timaeus, Sophist, Statesman); details throughout call attention to how he became the philosopher he is, how he turned from the study of natural science to his distinctive examination of human things (Phaedo, Parmenides, Symposium, Apology of Socrates). But we cannot assume Socrates speaks for Plato. For one thing, Socrates is famous for his irony and his claim that he possesses only human wisdom or knowledge of ignorance. What positive doctrine can be assigned to such a man? Moreover, Plato has other formidable lead interlocutors – Parmenides, Timeaus, a Stranger from Elea, a Stranger from Athens – who differ with Socrates on important points. How can we begin to understand Socrates?

6. Assume that everything said is important. As to the arguments and speeches, we are frequently confronted with unusually difficult or obscure passages, seemingly pointless digressions, inexact repetitions or summaries, oaths, strange forms of address between characters, laughably bad logical moves, etc. It is prudent to assume that Plato had a reason for writing exactly what he did even if we don’t (yet) grasp it: an interpretation that dismisses or ignores anything odd simply because it is odd is arbitrary. The profound interplay of argument and action, between what is said and what happens, is one of the chief features of Plato’s artistry.

7. Find a thread. At the outset, seizing on details like those mentioned above can overwhelm us. It is safer to trace a line of argument that comes to the fore, focus on it intently, and observe how different sections of the dialogue become clearer, how arguments are joined or separated. Where are the “natural joints” in the conversation that Socrates says (in the Phaedrus) are to be expected in good writing? Then go back and consider how the stranger or more difficult things might fit into, deepen, or transform the picture. (Much further down the road, when the picture feels somewhat comfortable, we may find that we have made a habit of passing over various things that don’t fit or remain strange – try to notice and resist that.)

8. Some things that are not said are important. Every Platonic dialogue has a theme, yet it has also been said that every dialogue abstracts from something important. Logically, there is an infinite number of things that aren’t said. But when talking about topic x, there is often something one would expect a character to mention in a discussion about x that isn’t. It can be helpful to pause and consult your knowledge of other Platonic dialogues or even your own experiences in life – something relevant might prove conspicuous by its absence from the dialogue in question. E.g. Euthyphro, the dialogue on piety, never uses the word “soul”; Apology of Socrates never mentions “courage.” Such things are hard to notice at first, but it gets easier as you become familiar with more and more dialogues.

9. There is drama within and across the dialogues. Most dialogues have distinct settings, a cast of characters, more or less subtle dramatic action. Some dialogues with narration like Protagoras, Charmides, or Symposium offer elaborate details about how characters are seated, how they move about the room, what activities they engage in before, during, or after the conversations. Some of these details suggest how dialogues may be related to each other: themes, characters, locations, whether the conversation is freely chosen by Socrates or forced upon him, the kinds of interlocutors present. E.g. the last days of Socrates are tightly connected in a temporal chain. Symposium takes place from dusk until dawn; Phaedo takes place from dawn until dusk. Phaedo, Theaetetus, and Parmenides are dialogically framed and then narrated by various foreign admirers of Socrates sometime after his death. The dialogues are parts of a mysterious whole whose hidden order might reflect something of our own place in the cosmos.

10. Precision is not the same thing as clarity. Precision is a virtue of philosophic writing and analytical approaches to arguments are often helpful. But difficult speech about obscure phenomena may nevertheless be considered precise speech insofar as it deliberately preserves the confusion or problems the text is designed to treat. Genuine clarity about important matters requires that we think the thoughts ourselves, rather than studiously repeating the precise formulations of others. A precise lack of clarity by philosophic writers like Plato can aid us in that educative endeavor. Moreover, in times less friendly to intransigent philosophic inquiry, the precise treatment of controversial topics may require the use of studied errors, ambiguity or obscurity. But no number of appeals to considerations like these can justify conclusions based on interpretative leaps or bold hunches. A compelling reading must begin by simply observing the questions, puzzles, and inadequacies that arise from the surface of the text. “The problem inherent in the surface of things, and only in the surface of things, is the heart of things.”